Right There
by AuoraBlaze
Summary: Sandy is in love, and Spongebob is going to 'help! Spandy. c: -back to updating-
1. Chapter 1

_Livvy, this is the story I was scared you'd come up with, please don't hunt me down and beat me up if it is *hides*_  
><em>_<em>

_Like my other story, Driven by Love, this plot has been floating around in my head for a while. xD; Spongebob has helped nearly everyone with dating, Mr Krabs with Mrs Puff in Krusty Love, Squidward with Squilvia in Love That Squid, and he helps Plankton to... er, "seduce" Karen in Single Cell Anniversey! 8D So why not have him "help" Sandy? ;D Wink wink. [note that I /may/ or may not be giving off the wrong impression there, ahaha!]_

_ON WITH THE STORY! _

* * *

><p>Sandy was in the Treedome, sitting at her picnic bench. Her head was propped up on her hands and she was staring off into space, daydreaming, with a small smile on her face.<p>

Spongebob, who had been waiting outside for fifteen minutes already, decided to let himself into the unlocked Treedome, since it was clear Sandy wasn't going to open the door for him.

In Sandy's daydream, she dreamed that she was sitting on a bull, on a cliff overlooking the sunset, holding someone's hand.

... Wait, what?

Sandy looked down at her hand, which was grasping a yellow...

"Aren't sunsets beautiful, Sandy?" Spongebob sighed happily. Sandy just looked from their hands, Spongebob and the sunset. She couldn't tell if they were above or below land, because she wasn't wearing her air suit and Spongebob wasn't wearing a water helmet. Spongebob, as opposed to her, was sitting on a sheep.

When Sandy didn't answer him, he starting calling out her name. "Sandy? Sandy? SANDY!"

Drifting back in reality, she woke up with a start from her dream. What other person would be in front of her other than Spongebob?

"Sandy, you're awake!" He put down the megaphone he had shouted into. "You really zoned out there... Are you feeling okay?" He asked, concern filling his voice.

Sandy rubbed her head. "Now that you mention it, I feel kinda... I dunno, tingly inside?"

Spongebob gasped and took out a notepad and a pen. "Anything else?"

"Well... I feel fluffy, if that's possible. And dazed. And kinda happy. And slightly mystified."

Spongebob nodded and proceeded to scrawl all this down. "What _exactly_ were you dreaming about there, hrm?" He said in a playful tone, raising his eyebrows. "You seemed pretty distracted by whatever it was, you were sitting there for a while. Like twenty minutes or something."

Sandy giggled nervously. "Well, I was dreaming of... uhh, roses! Yeah, roses. And... er... sunsets."

He wrote it down. "Interesting." He put the notepad and pencil on the table. "It seems to me that you are in loooooooove, Miss Cheeks." He put his clasped hands next to his cheek, his eyes wide, putting emphasis on the word 'love'.

Sandy started to laugh. He was starting to get on her nerves now. "In love? That's crazy talk, Spongebob."

"If you think about it, it isn't. I mean, would _you_ usually be daydreaming about roses and sunsets?"

"Well, I guess not, but-"

"No buts, Sandy! We must delve further into this and get you and this mystery guy together!" Spongebob exclaimed enthusiastically.

Sandy sighed darkly. This was going to be fun.


	2. Chapter 2

_Hello! Thank you all for your reviews, follows, likes, and all of that other jazz - I hope you guys are still around to read this chapter!_

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><p>Spongebob quite suddenly found himself back in the sea, the metallic door closing loudly behind him with an unwelcoming 'clang'. He put a finger to his chin, rewinding through what had just happened.<p>

Visit Sandy, check.  
>Find Sandy in a distracted and unresponsive mood, correct.<br>Extract information from Sandy to find out why she was like this, yep.  
>Anger Sandy, sure.<br>Get shoved rather hastily out of the treedome, affirmative.

If she wouldn't open up, he would then need to activate his super sneaky spy skills, and pry out her secret himself... through secret observation! It would be just like jellyfish watching, but with more Sandy and less jellyfish!

Taking his pen and notepad out again from his pocket, he wrote a new entry on a fresh page.

_'Location: Bikini Bottom, Sandy's dome_  
><em>Time: 5:34pm <em>  
><em>Species: 'Sandicus Cheekicus' <em>  
><em>Behaviour Pattern:'<em>

Determined to fill in this line, Spongebob stared at the large, challenging dome. He noticed Sandy stomping angrily into her treehouse, unaware that the sponge had not yet left her property. She slammed the door behind her. It was a surprise it hadn't been blown off its hinges - even from the outside, Spongebob heard the faint 'thud' of the closing door, and even now the glass exterior of the abode was quivering slightly from the impact. Spongebob gulped. That sure was a resilient door.

Slightly frightened, but not discouraged, the sea creature brought his notebook back to attention.  
><em>'Visibly...'<em> Spongebob tapped the pen on his chin, searching for a suitable word. _'... Frustrated. Sandicus Cheekicus resorts to expressing... powerful violence which should be avoided if one wanted to live without fatalities. Despite these outbursts, the observation will continue!'_

Since the squirrel had entered her tree, and she had not reappeared outside while Spongebob was writing [thinking up long, fancy words took Spongebob a while], chances were that she would be staying inside her house until dark. He had no choice but to scale the glass dome and somehow find an entrance from there, if this expedition were to indeed continue.

Spongebob put away his writing apparatus and cracked his knuckles. He soon found that he couldn't stick to the solid glass surface, no matter how many times he threw himself at it. He soon figured that he could perhaps haul himself up the door, if he climbed up and supported himself with the steering-wheel-modeled handle, and onto the draining shaft, if he crawled along it, of course, as to not slip and fall off. If he did say so himself, it was a rather intelligent plan.

Needless to say, when he carried this out, he did look quite odd dragging himself along, and what little passersby who _did_ walk by Sandy's house, gave him strange looks. One of the fish recognised the sponge from an earlier incident in a trip to the zoo - she quickly left, towing her child along behind her, muttering something incoherent about 'land mammals' and 'undesirables'.

The sponge, who had not noticed the unwanted, growing attention he was receiving, despite his efforts in being 'sneaky', had at this stage reached a safe place on the slippery metal, where he could stand properly with caution. Now that he had gotten to a [somewhat] higher point, he noticed that there was a trail of barnacles clinging onto the exterior of the dome. Spongebob wrinkled his nose slightly. He'd have to let Sandy know about that. But if it was his only way up...

Spongebob tested a reachable barnacle's secureness with his hand. It didn't budge.

Some time later, he found himself on top of the spherical structure. Wiping his hands off his pants, he was glad that was finally over. Retrieving the writing materials from his pocket, which had luckily survived the climb, he wrote a new comment:

_'It's expected that Sadicus Cheekicus does not regularly partake in dome cleanliness management outside.'_

After he wrote his little quip, he did feel somewhat better about the awful experience. He began to search around, looking for any means of entrance.

Aha! There was a conveniently placed plug in the very center of the dome-top, with the treehouse directly under. Perfect! He would quietly put on his water helmet, slip in and through the plug's uncovered hole, once he pulled it out, and down into the green tree's concealing foliage. From there, he could conduct his research on this investigation in secret, and in comfort - this tree had things Sandy called 'branches' on it, which the tree used to grow these 'leaves' on. The branches were very nice to sit on, and would be perfect to observe from.

With this 'flawless' plan in confident mindset, Spongebob failed to think of one, rather important detail that you've probably pinned down anyway somewhere along the way - _why_ the plug was actually there in the first place.  
>Oblivious to what his actions could trigger, Spongebob reached to pull out the obscuring object.<p>

**x x x**

Sandy was incredibly flustered, almost waddling in anger towards her living room. That was an unbelievably humiliating and embarrassing experience. From that daydream, to being caught with having it, to ending up with... that conversation. Never before would she have even imagined, in her wildest, buffalo-darned dreams, hearing words of that... topic coming from the premature sponge's mouth. She sat down in the nearest chair. Had he ever had a proper date before, that wasn't his mother, let alone a girlfriend before?

Thinking back, she remembered the sponge telling her that he had never had a chance to attend secondary/high school, though she had never actually asked why. And she called herself an inquisitive scientist. Did she have no heart?

She began to feel extremely guilty and pitiful towards the sponge. He had helped so many people with so many things, to the best of his ability, even aiding them with their... romantic pursuits, something he had never experienced before. Instead of him trying to help her, it should be vice-versa. She had, at least, for a short time, known what the innocent sponge never had. Sandy should be the one helping him with this, he should be the one dreaming about sunsets and hand-holding and not her. But even if he did start feeling lonely, what could she do for him?

Her overly active mind was currently voicing - no, yelling, its opinion on one way she could be 'helpful'. As this immature thought hit her, she felt her face heat up, and shoved her first into the side of her head, as if this action would push the thought out.

What was _wrong_ with her? Her mood was turning like a water faucet, not to mention she was slacking off her assignment! She sighed, and wondered how long she had spent on her, err, emotional journey. Checking her watch, she noted that the sponge usually would have intruded her home again about five minutes ago, if her previous experiences were anything to go by. _Perhaps he did go home after all._ She began to feel bad again, and considered calling him.

The doorbell sounded at that exact thought. It was probably him now - she stood up, exited the room, took her air helmet as she passed it in the hall, and made her way towards the main door. She had locked it, so he couldn't have gotten in without breaking something. How thoughtful of him to knock.

However, she couldn't help but notice the large crowd of fish outside her dome. This didn't look good. Her reassured feeling was slowly disappearing. She opened the door to a fish who was probably one of this large gathering, and certainly not the sponge she was expecting.

"Howdy, Fred, is there something I can do for, err, you folks?" she inquired politely.

"Good day Miss Cheeks. I just felt obliged to let you know, I think there may be a fellow trying to break into your... adobe," the dark beige fish replied, unsure as of how to address the squirrel's dome. Sandy didn't really understand, but apparently this crowd were then referring to, and watching, this burglar, almost as if they were a T-rated movie. Muffled whispers of _'How did he get up there?', 'And in broad daylight!'_,_ 'People like this shame the town's name',_ were vaguely heard among the captivated audience, as Sandy followed their gaze, ready to show how Texans dealt with these kind of people.

Instead, what else did she see, other than a square, brown behind in plain sight, as the owner continued to climb the squirrel's treedome, still unaware of the attention as a 'spy' he was attracting. The squirrel had conflicting emotions, as she mentally facepalmed. A provocative part of her wanted to keep staring, the Texas part of her still wanted to lasso him down and beat him up, while the confused-but-angry part of her just wanted to crawl into bed, ignore him climbing up her dome and slam her face repeatedly into her pillow at his stupidity. Thankfully, her brain disregarded these possible reactions as it began to work logically again, and Sandy started to take action.

Nodding her appreciation at Fred, she addressed the crowd. 'Okay, y'all, move out - there's nothing more to see here. If y'all would kindly leave!'  
>An unidentified fish shouted, 'Can't we at least watch you beat him up?!' Ignoring the request, Sandy slowly but surely dispersed the large crowd.<p>

Looking back up at Spongebob, he had now managed to climb the whole dome, and was now probably about to do something stupid up there.

She watched him seemingly catch sight of and move towards something, which did not look good. The reassuring, trusting feeling within her had now died. Quickly grabbing an emergency lasso from her drainage room, she backed up into the ocean some, and saw that the object of his target was the dome's air plug.

She didn't think he would've been _that_ stupid.

Letting out an angry yell of the yellow offender's name, she gave her lasso a mighty throw and managed to land the loop-knot around the porous sponge, almost wringing him when she tightened her hold. A perfect throw, as expected from the Texan 'Rodeo Queen'!

With a marvelous tug, she sent the rope's hostage hurtling towards the sea bed.

The unidentified fish from earlier let out a small cheer as he watched Sandy nail the sponge, who was now plummeting downward, and slowly slipped away, unnoticed.

**x x x**

Spongebob's dramatic moment was fortunately cut short by an unexpected counter attack, the thick twine of the rope squeezing the breath - or water, depending on how you look at it - out of him, as if he was in a seasnake's coil. The glass suddenly seemed to slip away from underneath his feet, and his vision began to blur. As he hit the ground with an unceremonious thud, he thought for a moment that his life flashed before his eyes, like they say it does in books and films, but as his sight came back into focus, he realized that Sandy was the culprit of the assault, and his eyes had been mangled his view of her.

The squirrel was also now standing in front of him, with her arms crossed and a stern expression. As an attempt to flip the situation, he casually propped his head on his hand, his skinny, yellow elbow digging into the sand, as if he totally intended to land right before her with her rope around his waist.

"Hi Sandy, how're you doing?"

Her expression darkened, which seemed like she wasn't buying it. He decided to try a different approach, as he straightened back up.

"... Sandy, I can explain-!"  
>"No, Spongebob, I don't want to hear it. I don't know what could justify what looked like you getting ready to bust open my air plug, seeing as how I can't exactly <em>breathe<em> underwater," she quipped angrily.

Spongebob's heart sank - how did something like that go right by him? He would have unknowingly drowned his friend and her possessions if she had not caught him. He began to feel as awful as the slimy barnacles on her dome. Maybe if he tried to explain his mission?

"Sandy, I didn't-"  
>"Jus' stop, Spongebob. Please leave." Sandy didn't look at him as she yanked the lasso off him, sending him tumbling again to the ground. She slammed her dome door closed, again, but much harder this time, the metal vibrating.<p>

Spongebob had made his friend slam two doors because of him today.

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><p><em>Ooooh. Bet you all thought I was gonna take the happy sunshine rainbow buttercups daises unicorns road with this. To be honest, I thought I was gonna take that road too.<br>~is hit with a shoe~ Okay, I'll stop the driving puns!_

_What did you think, anyone who wants to comment? I'm hoping to finish this before too long, I have the sequence planned out in my head. Though god knows what it'll get mangled into, the longer it stays in there for. o.0  
><em>


	3. Chapter 3

Guys, guess what! I can update chapters on an iphone! -squee- As soon as I found out, I ran to publish this! It's more of a bridge, though, I just wanted a new day. :D There's some mopey sponge and some attempts at science humour. Be warned. :p

x x x

Well, darn. That certainly didn't go well.

... Perhaps that was an understatement.

Honestly, he hadn't actually acknowledged that he would have endangered his friend, had she not seemingly predicted his actions with her intellectual sciencey-whizz, a forte whose grasp always seemed to elude him. He often ended up being the test monkey when he partook in the smart squirrel's experiments.

At least it was always fun impersonating a monkey.

But perhaps if he had even the slightest understanding of the laws of physics, of which he regularly enjoyed partially breaking, he would have comprehended that liquid is denser than oxygen, so of course, it will serve to comply with gravity, and push the oxygen out of whatever container it occupies, because liquid always wants to prove it's better at following the rules of physics than oxygen is, and always wants the spotlight.

At least air can get its own back through condensation. Take that, liquid!

Unfortunately for Spongebob, Bikini Bottom's education system did not delve very far into this side of science, and didn't take it as seriously as certain land mammals' schooling may have.

Even so, it can be argued that our sponge can easily fill a glass of water and see this in action himself, a replay of a not-so-drastic and harmless example of how Sandy's dome would have filled.

A memory of Sandy, paranoid over a crack in her dome's ceiling once, ran across his mind - he had only wanted a battle of vigorous karate, and didn't realize what could have happened if that tiny crack had been left untreated. He had only thought her to be overreacting.

Thinking of this sent the poor little guy further into his guilt, as he wandered around with no destination in mind. He was only caught up in the heat of the moment - who doesn't feel cool when they try to sneak to somewhere forbidden? It was guaranteed that he meant no harm. But that mindset didn't help to ease the pitless feeling inside him.

This could have been avoided, had he not intruded on her in the first place. What was he trying to do? He had no experience with helping a -female- friend of his with their love problems. That must be why Sandy was angry with him, since he was intruding into territory he was unexperienced with.

... You know, besides the fact of her being angry that he almost drowned her.

He slouched.

Come to think of it, Sandy -was- his only female friend. Unless you count his mother, and his grandmother, and of course Mrs. Puff! Maybe he could even count Pearl, and Tina, and Judy, and Sally as his female friends. In that case, he had a lot of friends that were girls, but he never really needed to assist any of them with matchmaking before.

He trudged on, deep in thought and unconsiously thankful of the distraction this newfound dilemma provided.

Truth be told, Sandy hadn't given him a lot of information about her 'infatuation', as she had called it. His vocabulary of romance may have been somewhat limited, but as far as he was concerned 'sunset' and 'roses' were all he needed to hear. His extensive knowledge knowledge of romance movies would do the rest! He had seen all the hits, from 'Frylight', the tragic lovestory of two chipper shop fish, trying to escape their fate of the deep fat fryer, to 'She's the Lobster', the classic situation of a sassy krill trying to fit in at a school for crustaceans, as a newly transformed male lobster, while finding herself swept into the claws of romance with her male roommate! He considered himself a huge fan of these works. And whenever something went wrong for the fish in these movies, the problem would always find a way to resolve itself in the end.

Perhaps this would be the same.

He sighed. He'd only wanted to try to make his friend happy, but he had messed up very badly. In more ways than one.

There was only one thing to do when everything was turned to despair - seek the advice of the wisest sea creature he knew, since the wisest land creature he knew was... out of commission.

x x x

Sandy had somewhat recovered her rage/disappointment, and was now admiring the simple beauty of her treedome from her garden table. Her tree purified and refreshed oxygen for her to breathe, and the inside also proved to be a fantastic living space. It took its nutrients from the small settlement of soil lining the base of the snowglobed dome, which she took care to organically refertilise regularly.

... Yes, she was sidetracking to more pleasant thoughts, when one would expect her to be stomping around in anger over the recently occured event.

But who could blame her for pushing it out of her thoughts? She could have almost died to her friend and she was taking it unexpectedly well, as expected of a grounded, mature, logical mind.

... And anyway, when given the choice would -you- prefer to dwell over -that-, or admire your own scientific genius?

Besides, she had already been fuming over the adorable yellow imbeccile for the past ten minutes. Being grouchy wasn't making her feel any better, and it certainly wasn't benefitting anyone.

She sighed and glanced around her. The sky outside had darkened to a deep navy, the sun having set long ago. The cold air in the dome only just now seemed to hit her, as she realised the temperature drop. She shivered at this, as expected, seeing as she was still clad in only her bikini, and hastily got to her feet, rushing towards her treehome. Perhaps she had spent a bit longer than ten minutes being upset.

Soon enough, she was prepared to hit the hay after her eventful day. Already in her bed, she reached to turn off her nightlamp, before her hand froze halfway. Was it really a good idea to willingly slip into unconsiousness, with the possibility of Spongebob lurking about? Sure, he had left a long while ago, but...

She unwillingly unravelled herself from her duvet, and dragged herself up two flights upstairs to reach her lab, activating the control to her metal dome covering.

Hearing the satisfying 'whirr' of the casing extending outside, she glanced groggily out of a nearby window, to only be greeted with the pitch blackness that came with the silver shield.

She yawned. That should do it.

x x x

The saddened little sponge trodded to the rock home of his 'intelligent' starfish friend, which was now coming into view. After closing the distance, he knocked against the hard semispheric structure.

He waited a few moments, and with no reply, knocked again. "Patrick?"

The insistent knocking continued, and it eventually woke the grumpy Patrick from his slumber.

Spongebob knew that Patrick had a strict 'to bed at 6:30' rule from his mother, since he was still a growing boy, but did the sponge ever choose to respect that? No! Why did Patrick have to suffer because of the Sponge family's bad parenting, the parents who were now letting Spongebob stay up this late?

The rock soon edged up an unnoticeable centimeter.

"'Patrick' is currently unavailible. Please try again later or leave a message after the beep." A pause. "Beeeeep."

The sponge frowned. "Fispaste. I guess I missed him."

Perhaps he could try to go see Sandy again and apologise. Patrick probably would have suggested it, anyway.

As Spongebob walked back the way he had came, Patrick lowered his rock. "Gets him every time," he commented drowsily, crawling back to his sand bed. He didn't get paid enough to be a psychiatrist past his bedtime.

He reached the treedome yet again. He could see Sandy sitting in the same place she had been when he first visited her that day, but she was turned away from the direction he had came from.

At the sense of deja vu, Spongebob finally felt his heart sink to his toes, it being unable to go any further down than that, despite how sad he was.

If she would rather stay in her day dreams, then he would let her. That mystery guy was probably miles better than he could ever be.

Unofficially rejected by his friend, the sea sponge again turned to go back the way he had came.

x x x

He sighed as he entered his pineapple home, shutting the door quietly behind him. Not even the sight of an adorable sleeping Gary curled up on his couch managed to make him feel better.

Delicately picking up the little precious, he crept up the stairs and set the pet in his rightful stack of newspaper. For some reason, Gary preferred the paper printout to sleep on, as opposed to any pet bed Spongebob would buy for him. But the loving owner didn't mind catering to his snail's will, if that's what he liked best.

Petting Gary once more, Spongebob went to the bathroom, to ready himself for bed. Maybe in the morning, things would be better.


End file.
